Sir Tatton Sykes. 245 



hour was nigh. An attack of bronchitis in November 

 shook him still more, and it was aggravated by his 

 dislike to doctoring, and his forgetfulness of age. 

 During the winter, he liked to sit by the fire and be 

 read to, and scarcely cared to go near his mares 

 and foals, which those about him felt to be the 

 strongest involuntary confession of growing weakness, 

 more especially in a man, who was always thought to 

 have a strong secret wish of living to be a hundred. 

 Early in March he had an attack of gout, which 

 rather amused him than otherwise, seeing that his 

 family had been subject to it, and here he was the 

 premier sportsman of England, in immediate succes- 

 sion to " Old Kit Wilson," only caught by it at ninety- 

 and-a-half. When it quitted him eight days before 

 his death, dropsy rapidly set in, and the sad whisper, 

 scarcely believed at first, went over Yorkshire, that 

 * Sir Tatton is dying." Some hoped he might rally 

 as he had done before, but the once iron frame had 

 found its conqueror. He lay almost insensible, but 

 breathing very heavily, from Tuesday to Saturday, 

 and then his brave old heart went out with the 

 dawn.* 



The chestnut Wensleydale is the only one of the 

 old blood that the present baronet retains, and he 

 chose her out of a lot of eighteen three-year-old 

 fillies. She is by Colsterdale and strains back to the 



* The funeral took place on Friday, 27th March, 1863, and was 

 attended by nearly three thousand of all classes from the East and North 

 Ridings. At half-past twelve the coffin was placed on a rest at the west 

 front of the house, before which the tenantry were arranged in pairs, 

 and the procession was then formed to the church. Lord Hotham, 

 Lord Middleton, Sir F. Legard, Admiral Duncombe, Mr. L. Thomp- 

 son, Mr. R. Bower, Mr. James Hall, and Mr. Hill were the pall 

 bearers. The day was clear but cold, and Sledmere, with the troops of 

 deer moving in the distance, and the brood mares and foals throwing up 

 their heads and trotting round the park, and then stopping to gaze at 

 the multitude which had invaded their solitudes, never looked more 

 beautiful. 



